[Code] file_found?(path) and to_ascii+to_unicode.rb

thomthom

This is also interesting comment:

...
This method applies to output routines only, and it is useless here.
Actually problem is in the Windows-specific implementation of some Ruby
libraries. Ruby reads the environment variable in awful wrong encoding, and
works with file system objects in awful wrong encoding, too.
...

thomthom

Ok, I know I'm going back and forth here, but at the moment .to_ansi might be wrong. .to_ascii might not be complete indication of what's returned, but we know that we get the ASCII characters. .to_single_byte_characters or .to_unsigned_chars is more accurate, but a bit long names.

TIG

Why don't we call the script "friendlytext.rb" and call them
ruby_friendly(text)
and
sup_friendly(text)

That way
FileTest.exist?(ruby_friendly(model.path))
returns true

and you can turn Ruby made text back to suit SUp using the other form ? ...

This also doesn't enter into this ansi/ascii/unicode/utf8 territory which looks like a quicksand... It also doesn't apportion blame !!!

thomthom, you seem to be spending more time on this than me... why don't you take it over and decide what to call the methods ? I'd be happy to hand it over...

thomthom

@tig said:

Why don't we call the script "friendlytext.rb" and call them
ruby_friendly(text)
and
sup_friendly(text)

That's a very pragmatic solution to it. I like it!

@tig said:

thomthom, you seem to be spending more time on this than me... why don't you take it over and decide what to call the methods ?

Since I use Norwegian characters that fall into this encoding trap it's rather important to me to know what's going on. I might look into some extra set of helper functions that I'll add to the SKX project. But I'd need some time to work out what's really going on.
For now these snippets will provide enough functionalities for most western languages.

TIG

thomthom

She's all yours...

If you want me to remove any early stuff let me know [PM etc]...

thomthom

I think it can stick with the friendly names you suggested.
I'm doing more research. Just signed up for a Ruby forum to work out how Ruby behaves. Once I've gathered the info I need I'll make a thread describing the findings.

thomthom

FYI, for anyone that (most unlikely) might be following on my ramblings - I've initiated a new thread over at a Ruby forum for further investigations: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/191016#833043

thomthom

I'm fairly confident that it's ISO 8859-1 which .pack('C*') generates. As long as the characters fits into ISO 8859-1 the UTF-8 can be converted with the pack/unpack methods. If they fall outside, other solutions are needed.

One annoying finding with this is that the Euro symbol seem to be impossible to use. When ruby comes across this in a UTF-8 string it chokes and throws an error.

I'll begin writing up this to something more readable than today's ramblings.

thomthom

sigh
Euro can be used - just not typed into the Console. You might get it passed via SU's ruby method if it's used in a material name or component name. though .unpack('U') will return 8364 for it. Way outside the code point for ISO 8859-1. However, if you type in the octal value "\200" you get the Euro in a 1byte length string. So it should be mappable. But pack and unpack doesn't map the Unicode points between 128-160 well. So I'll be looking for a better conversion.

I've heard of Iconv, but that's an Win API call I think - not a solution for Mac.

TIG

I am glad you have taken such a complicated thing over ....

thomthom

@tig said:

I am glad you have taken such a complicated thing over ....

I'm not... This makes my head hurt.
But I need to know.

But at least it beats sudoko puzzles...

TIG

@thomthom said:

But at least it beats sudoko puzzles...

I can do those !!!

thomthom

daiku

@tig said:

@thomthom said:

But at least it beats sudoko puzzles...

I can do those !!!

But can you generate a puzzle using ruby code? Sounds like an idea for a ruby challenge.

tomasz

I am looking into this issue right now. I haven't found anything more then TIG and Thomas has figured out. I have even started to code a C extension to return proper string converted from Ruby UTF-8, but my poor C knowledge doesn't let me progress fast.
As far as I understand Win uses UTF-16 format, but the whole encoding thing hurts my head badly.
Have someone made any progress on this issue?

thomthom

What are you trying to do? String conversion? Or deal with files with unicode characters?

tomasz

@thomthom said:

What are you trying to do? String conversion? Or deal with files with unicode characters?

I am trying to create a file with a path/filename containing for example Polish characters 'Błąd.xml'. They are not part of ISO 8859-1 so the .pack('C*') doesn't generate proper path and file will be created under different name 'BĹ‚Ä…d.xml'

thomthom

Right, what you want to do is make your C extension call the Unicode version of the file API's - as converting from Unicode to ASCII in order to try and make Ruby's file functions work will in most cases not work.

Note that the ASCII limitation for SketchUp's Ruby file functions exist only under Windows. Under OSX they should work AFAIK.

Dan Rathbun

Do not ignore Dan Berger's windows-pr package. It goes along with his win32-api package. Has the Windows "unicode.rb"

In windows-apt-0.4.0 there's a complementary file "wide_string.rb"